


Legal

by uminoko



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uminoko/pseuds/uminoko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I apologize that this isn't as much of a Jennifer Walters Fic as it is a Legal Fic, in all the clever (or not so clever) implications of the word.  There was a haunting quality to the character, though, that continues to plague me, and I hope I managed to express that unease in this work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legal

Legal wasn't hired by Tony Stark.  He simply appeared on the Eighteenth Floor one day, like a growth, and no one questioned his presence.  He didn't have a name, a discernible age, or particularly outstanding interests.  In fact, everyone who worked Eighteenth swore that they have never seen him leave the office, yet surely he must have slept, or, more likely, transported himself to courtrooms and mediators' offices.    Still, how he got there mystified the common folk.  You turned around in a scale-of-justiced hallway, and there he was, because he was simply bound to be there.

He never answered the phone, because Legal has transcended such things, at least that's what Jennifer was told.  However, she heard a story once - only once, mind you, well past midnight and the legal driving limit - from a young man who entered Legal's room without knocking one day.

"That was my first mistake," he said, shaking his smartly cropped head at the bar mirrors.

After another drink, he recalled that Legal picked up the phone, which was ringing so wildly it jumped all across the grey (everything Legal touched came up as grey in the memory of onlookers, regardless of the item's actual color) desk.  Then, he spoke.  The intern said that it sounded like a multitude of voices, impossible to wrap one's mind around, but the words entered his consciousness in a locust-thick cloud, devoid of all meaning.  As he stood there, Legal raised his balding head, and at that moment the intern became the ex-intern.

"I dropped out of law school," he confessed to his whiskey, trembling.  "Moved to LA, waited tables for a while, dabbled in acting.  I tried doing office work for my dad's firm, but I can't do reception.  No phones.  Not anymore."

He said the mechanic's shop next door has been kind to his peculiarities, and the boss has been patient in training him.  She tells him he does good work, so that's good enough for him.

Sometimes, as Jen heard him say before he laid his head down on the bar, he still had dreams about walking down the endless hallway on the Eighteenth Floor towards Legal's desk.


End file.
